Elminster Must Die sos-1

by Ed Greenwood

  Leaving the Cormyreans blinking at each other across a hollow full of unconscious men.

  Narulph broke the silence with a sudden, angry oath. “You let her get away! Without even telling us how to get the horses!”

  Starbridge shook his head slowly. “When she kissed me, his name and a word just appeared in my mind: ‘Denneth Rhardantan,’ and ‘glimmerdeep.’ ”

  He shook himself again, as if awakening, and snapped, “Get these dolts awake-they work for the Crown, so be gentle-and let’s be finding the trail to Mistledale. If this council goes as ill as I fear it will, I want to be back in Cormyr before it erupts into war!”

  His command all stared at him; he gave them a glare, waved his arms, and roared, “Did you hear me? Move!”

  They moved. All except the war wizards Mereld and Lemmeth.

  “Sir Highknight,” Mereld asked quietly, “are you all right? What else did she do to you?”

  Eskrel Starbridge stared back at them for a moment and then said, “I’m under no glamour, if that’s what you fear. Put down those sticks, Lemmeth; they’re not wands. She just took them from the kindling to make fools think they were seeing a wizard with wands, so they’d leave him be. She told me that, too.”

  He started across the hollow. “And she gave me a look into her mind,” he added in a whisper. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping for some while. I know now what real loneliness feels like.”

  The two war wizards stepped into his way, wearing frowns. “We’d better get you to-”

  Starbridge gave them a wry grin and shook his head. “I’ll be all right. You see, I know now what true love feels like, too.”

  “What’s wrong?” Marlin Stormserpent snapped.

  Windstag was too out of breath and too terrified to be coherent. He put his head down almost against Marlin’s belly, gasping and shuddering. “Get us inside! Magic-don’t know whose-yours? — snatched us here!”

  Marlin bundled the three nobles through the door and slammed it in a whirlwind of haste, then rushed them along a dark passage, up some stairs, and into a room in Stormserpent Towers that none of the three had ever seen before. The Lords Dawntard and Sornstern promptly fainted.

  Marlin gave them a grim look then snapped at Windstag, “Catch your breath, then tell me your tale.”

  Nodding, head down, and panting too hard to speak, Windstag fumbled in the breast of his disarranged jerkin and brought out-a glowing hand axe!

  “Ha ha!” Marlin burst out, snatching it from him. “Well done! Oh, well done!”

  And he rushed from the room, chortling in triumph.

  Broryn Windstag fought to get in two gasping breaths more of air, then forced himself into a run, up and after Stormserpent.

  Who was luckily still visible, racing up a narrow servants’ stair in the dimly lit distance. Windstag struggled after him, lungs burning, lurching like a drunken man in his pain and weariness, but clawing his way up the stairs and keeping Marlin-or at least the glowing axe-in sight.

  Stormserpent ended up in the room where he always met with them. Axe in hand, he spun around, pointed at Windstag, and commanded, “Be still. Don’t move or speak until I’m done with the ritual.”

  He turned away without waiting for a reply, so Windstag lurched to his usual chair and collapsed in it. Where he leaned on the table, still gasping loudly, able to do little more than stare at Marlin Stormserpent.

  Who turned away for a moment, his elbow moving as if his fingers were busy getting something out of his own clothing, then turned back to face the table and Windstag.

  Holding the axe up as if saluting with it, Marlin read from a scrap of parchment that he hadn’t been holding moments earlier. “Arruthro.”

  That word seemed to roll away across a greater distance than the room could contain-and the air darkened. At first Windstag thought it was his own labored breathing that was making things seem that way, but then he felt a tension, almost a singing, in the air, too.

  That definitely hadn’t been there, before.

  “Tar lammitruh arondur halamoata,” Stormserpent announced, speaking loudly and slowly.

  The room seemed to grow colder. Windstag swallowed a curse.

  “Tan thom tanlartar,” Marlin added-and the hand axe silently erupted in weird blue fire. Raging flames raced down his arm to the elbow and then wreathed it and the axe in an ongoing inferno that-Windstag stared-seemed to cause Stormserpent no pain at all, nor even scorch his clothing. No heat was coming from it, only a deepening chill.

  “Larasse larasse thulea,” Marlin declaimed, and the room went icy.

  An instant later, the blue flames sprang from the blade of the axe, a flood of fire that arced to the floor and then rebounded up again in an upright column, a surging, rising thing that grew and grew. With a darkness at the heart of those rushing flames that slowly … became a man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  MY HOUNDS TO HUNT YOU DOWN

  At the sight of a man in the heart of the blue flames, Marlin Stormserpent laughed in triumph-but his mirth faltered when the flames fell to the floor with a crash, like the contents of an upended bucket of water, and were suddenly gone.

  Leaving behind someone who was not wreathed in endless blue flames like Langral and Halonter had been.

  Stormserpent joined Windstag in gape-mouthed, astonished staring.

  Standing in his meeting room was an unlovely man in rumpled leathers who was stout-no, fat-and wrinkled with age and hard living. And who was staring back at him with a shrewd, measuring look.

  “W-who are you? One of the Nine?” Marlin managed to ask when he found his voice again.

  “Do I look like a bare-behind dancing girl? The Naughty Nine are all taller than me, lad, and far more shapely, too-though I’ll agree they don’t make cozy lasses like they used to! Nay, lad, I’m no dancer, whate’er yer preferences. I’m a bit of a trader and not much more, these days, though I guess ’tis no secret I’m a lord of Waterdeep.”

  “Whaaat?”

  “Nay, nay, no need for awe and astonishment. I,” the old man said sardonically, drawing himself up in mimicry of a grand ruler and striking a heroic pose, “am Mirt. Sometimes called the Moneylender, and more often-hem-called much worse things.”

  Marlin stared in disbelief, growing a frown, then swiftly tried to force the old man back into the hand axe, as he could control Langral and Halonter.

  Nothing happened.

  “Sit down!” he snapped. “And-and cover your eyes with your hands!”

  Mirt the Moneylender lifted one bristling eyebrow. “Children’s games, is it? I always wondered what wealthy younglings got up to when-”

  “This one, a lord of Waterdeep?” Windstag sneered scornfully. “He sounds like a merchant from the docks!”

  Mirt dispensed a dour look. “I am a merchant from the docks, loud buck! And who might ye be, with yer scorn and yer fancy clothes? Ye look like nobles, both of ye, but I know every last born noble of the city, lass and jack, an’-”

  “We are nobles of Cormyr,” Marlin Stormserpent snapped. “And you stand in Stormserpent Towers in the fair city of Suzail, right now. ‘Now’ being the Year of the Ageless One, as it happens. I doubt Waterdeep would suffer the likes of you to be among its lords these days!”

  Mirt gaped at the young Lord Stormserpent and went a little pale. “Ageless One? Is-gods, is that how long it’s been?”

  “So,” Windstag asked Stormserpent, “when do the flames surround him? And when can you start ordering him around like a slave? Or is he going to crumble to dust?”

  “Lad,” Mirt replied, before Marlin could say anything, “dust is what we’re all going to end up as.” He winced. “Dust is probably what my Asper is, right now. And Durnan, and all the others I cared for, or-”

  “Oh, shut your wind,” Marlin Stormserpent told the old man disgustedly. “As if we care about your doxies or friends or anyone from Waterdeep! On your knees!”

  Mirt gave the young lord a glare and stood righ
t where he was. “Huh. If the Realms in this year is full of the likes of ye, I don’t think much of it. Or of thy sneering friend, here.” He turned his disapproval on Windstag-who responded by rising and drawing his sword.

  Marlin did the same, adding a menacing smile.

  Mirt rolled his eyes. “And is this how converse is carried on in the Realms these days? Swords, is it? Not even a glass of something for guests? And ye call yourselves nobles!”

  “We do indeed,” Marlin Stormserpent told him in silken tones, stalking forward with blade in hand.

  Along the other side of the table, Broryn Windstag began the same slow, armed advance.

  “Ahem,” Mirt said tentatively, taking a step backward. “I believe I did warn ye that I’m a lord of Waterdeep.”

  “And we quake at the news,” Marlin Stormserpent sneered, hefting his blade. “This is what we think of lords of Waterdeep.”

  He spat at Mirt, though the range was considerable and he merely wetted the floor in front of the old man’s worn and flopping sea boots.

  Mirt raised his brows, face mild.

  Windstag strode forward, menacing the Waterdhavian with his sword. “Though we do know how rich lords of Waterdeep are. So you can either yield up a lot of coin to us, here and now-or die.”

  The old man sighed.

  “I don’t, as it happens,” he said sourly, “carry heavy sacks of coins around in my codpiece-or anywhere else under these old rags, either. All the bulges ye see are my own.”

  “So how much coin can you lay hands on in Suzail? And how quickly?”

  “Well,” Mirt wheezed, lumbering forward with an utter disregard for the sharp points of their swords, to peer at the table that displayed Marlin’s map of the city, “that depends.”

  “On?” The decanter had caught Marlin’s interest, but he stopped heading for it to see just where on the map the old man-who was standing right against the table, holding onto it for support-was looking.

  “On whether or not ye fall for this,” the old man said calmly, heaving up, hard-and hurling the table over onto the fine-booted toes of both noblemen.

  Who shrieked in pain and dropped their swords, lost in writhing agony. Which gave Mirt plenty of time to take a heavy statuette of Arlond Stormserpent Slaying a Dragon from the sideboard, lurch alongside the blindly hopping, shouting Windstag, and dash the noble to the floor with a blow to the head.

  Marlin, who was also hopping in pain, turned to try to fight, lost his balance, and toppled. Whereupon Arlond landed hard on his face, breaking his nose and sending him off to dreamland.

  Mirt calmly drew his dagger and sliced free two bulging noble purses. “That quickly,” he told the silent, sprawled, and copiously bleeding Marlin Stormserpent.

  The royal palace of Suzail was always quieter by night than by day. Not that the servants ever slept-least of all with the council almost upon the realm-but by the dark hours the collective vigilance of guards, courtiers, and wizards of war had at least ensured that all the visiting nobles were temporarily gone, and no more of them were coming to the gates haughtily demanding things.

  With morning heading for highsun, the floors above were abuzz with busy servants-though much furniture-shifting and rifling of the wine cellars had been done, and most of the chambers of state arranged, prepared, and then firmly shut up to await their coming times of need. Only the kitchens were working full tilt, with already-weary chambermaids pressed into service to help shift fresh-baked goods from the ovens to tables in nearby function rooms, thereby clearing the way so that more could be baked.

  The lone armored figure stalking unseen past all this tumult in one of the better-known secret passages was weary, too. He’d filched an entire tray of sage-and-egg tarts-better a tray than just one or two, when that might rouse a search for some lurking intruder-and had eaten more than was comfortable, but this armor had room enough for a dozen trays of uneaten tarts, if he cared not how much they crumbled.

  Elminster was slowly getting used to the weight and awkwardness of the armor-without its leather underpadding, it shifted loosely at his every movement and seemed to have a great abundance of sharp, jabbing edges-and had long since concluded that King Duar Obarskyr must have been more mighty bull than man.

  In his postprandial discomfort, and seeking to avoid unpleasant confrontations with Purple Dragons or officious wizards, he had taken his overfull stomach and copious resulting wind down to the lower levels of the palace. Where he trudged along damper, colder passages, correctly believing he was not so likely to be noticed and thought out of place down here and challenged.

  “Send no hounds to hunt me down,” he muttered, belching sage and eggs.

  “Stop daydreaming and attend my words!”

  This sort of bark meant Hallowdant was really angry. O Purple Dragon, preserve us all.

  The man who called himself Lothrae when he was sitting masked in front of an orb talking to foolish young Stormserpent stifled a sigh and put a pleasantly attentive smile on his face. “Yes, Lord High Steward?”

  Rorstil Hallowdant preened visibly. He loved it when someone pronounced his full title with just the right hint of reverent awe.

  Lothrae wished he could enjoy toying with the buffoon, but the man was in office over him, and-Great Gods Above!

  And, very suddenly-as ice raced down his spine and he felt himself breaking into a sweat-he greatly desired to be elsewhere in the palace, right then.

  The ring on the next-to-smallest finger of his left hand had once belonged to the legendary Laspeera, and it had just awakened. For the very first time in all his years of wearing it.

  He tried not to stare at its warning glow-silent, but so vivid and so sudden-then turned it on his finger to hide that radiance inside his closed hand, and cursed silently. Its warning meant someone had opened the royal crypt from the outside-but he dared not go to see who just then, with the steward literally jawing in his face, thundering order after order at him.

  My, but Hallowdant was in fine form for that time of a morning. An hour at which he was usually nowhere to be seen. Lothrae tried to console himself with the thought that one of the royals must have given him a real blast, to put him in such a state and have him up and about so early … but that musing utterly failed to improve his own mood.

  “-and another thing! The candles in the balcony sconces in Anglond’s Great Hall are half-burnt and need replacing! Now, before the council is upon us and we’re too busy to remember them, but need their light to fail not!”

  “Ah, yes, Lord High Steward,” he agreed hastily, starting to hasten along the hallway. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to it and report right back to you for more instructions-”

  “Stand where you are, man!” the palace steward stormed. “You’ll stay still, right here, and listen! I haven’t finished yet!”

  “Lord Hallowdant, please,” Lothrae tried again. “I really must relieve myself-”

  Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant could radiate towering disgust just as devastatingly as the very best noble matriarchs; it was one of his best talents. Wordlessly he pointed over Lothrae’s shoulder.

  At the door of a jakes that was literally four paces away.

  It was not one of the few that had secret panels in its rear wall, either, curse the luck.

  Lothrae sighed, resigned himself to perhaps never knowing who’d opened the crypt, and took his feigned need to empty his bladder into the jakes.

  As the door swung closed behind him, the ring on his finger quivered and shone even more brightly, and he discovered, all of a sudden, that he truly did need to relieve himself. Badly.

  In one of her favorite rooms of the palace-the nursery with the high round window she’d always loved watching the moon through-what was left of Alusair Obarskyr felt the activation of the rune, nine or so floors beneath her.

  Not to mention the stirring of someone who had long been silent.

  “One of Vangey’s old locking runes!” she hissed, alarmed and excited-and
rushed through the palace like a ghostly wind, racing to the spot.

  The ring’s brief blue glow faded, leaving Storm Silverhand blinking in the chill darkness.

  Ah, royal crypts are such cozy places. Suzail’s was no exception. Still, it was one spot in a palace that, elsewhere, must resemble an agitated anthill about then, where she shouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted while-

  There came a faint clank and rasping of sliding metal about four paces in front of her-and then the louder sound of a heavy stone door grating open. In the dim rectangle of resulting light, Storm found herself staring at a menacing figure in full armor.

  Who stumbled toward her with a muffled curse, fumbling with its skirting plates.

  Thankfully, that pleasantry was uttered in a voice she recognized.

  “Well met, El,” she greeted her armored visitor cheerfully, sidestepping deftly in case she startled him. Archwizards-hah, all wizards-were … dangerous. Like unsheathed carving knives forgotten in a dark drawer, they could imperil all who blundered too near.

  “Urrah? Storm?” The Sage of Shadowdale sounded astonished. “When did ye return?”

  “Now,” she replied simply, stepping around him to close the door. “Whence this sudden thirst for wearing armor?”

  “Stops idiot wizards of war hurling spells before they stop to ask who I am,” came the muffled reply. He produced something from under the skirts and thrust it at her. A tray, wobbling more than a little. “Here, hold this-and, ah, help thyself. Must get this blasted helm off.”

  “Savory tarts?” Storm asked, her stomach suddenly rumbling. When had she last eaten, anyh-

  The world erupted with a white-hot roar.

  The scrying exploded in his face, but Manshoon never flinched. He let the tears stream as he smiled.

  Lothrae and Mreldrake might be drooling idiots for days, but he’d managed it.

  Yes.

  Strike hard and fast enough, and you can fell even the mighty. Storm Silverhand should be a broken thing spattered across the back wall of the crypt, and Elminster sorely wounded.